National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse

National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse

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NAASCA Highlights

EDITOR'S NOTE: Occasionally we bring you articles from local newspapers, web sites and other sources that constitute but a small percentage of the information available to those who are interested in the issues of child abuse and recovery from it.

We also present original articles we hope will inform the community ...
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Working Together to Stop Abuse
  The Stop Abuse Campaign

An Introduction

November 2011

by Andrew Willis
Stop Abuse Campaign co-founder and CEO

Welcome to the Stop Abuse Campaign. We’re all affected by abuse and that’s why we all need to be a part of the movement to stop it.

A quarter of children are victims of sexual abuse

1 in 6 women victims of rape or attempted rape

1 in 3 women victims of intimate partner violence

Abuse costs the US taxpayer $500 Billion every year

The Stop Abuse Campaign is a 501(c)3 business missioned to stop abuse and alleviate the suffering of those involved.

We are a grassroots, membership based, campaign formed in collaboration with other organisations and causes who share a similar mission. We know that it’s going to take all of us working together to stop abuse and that’s why we provide half of our unallocated revenues in grants to support them.

The Campaign differs from most other abuse causes in three ways. We believe in the power of consumer brands to effect change, we cover all abuse recognising that the cycle of violence connects all forms of abuse, and we are inclusive. We know that stopping abuse will take all of us working together.

Many of us at the Campaign are survivors of abuse but we all share the same passion. Abuse needs to stop and survivors of abuse need access to more effective treatment.

It is going to take all of us working together to stop abuse and that is why we have partnered with the National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence across the lifespan with whom we will publish our plan to eliminate abuse in America within 25 years.

We’re the first generation with the knowledge and ability to stop abuse, join the movement, let’s not make this another problem we pass to our children.

The FBI’s crime reports estimate that half the population are survivors of some form of illegal
abuse !!
  The problem

Based on the FBI’s crime reports we estimate that half the population are survivors of some form of illegal abuse.

That’s an incredible statistic considering how little is being done to stop abuse but unfortunately it becomes more believable when you consider some of these harrowing facts:

1 in every 3 women, many men too, are victims of intimate partner violence.

1 in every 6 women will be victims of rape or attempted rape.

A quarter of children are sexually abused before they are 18 years old.

You don’t have to add much bullying, elder abuse, physical child abuse or neglect to understand how half the population is living with having been abused.

That’s shocking enough but scale is only half the problem.

Not only does abuse feed abuse through the cycle of violence but abuse also fuels many of society’s problems costing taxpayers $500 billion a year. That’s the equivalent of 3 Hurricane Katrina’s every year or funding 5 Iraq wars each and every year! Societal problems like substance abuse, prostitution and incarceration have abuse at their roots.

Eighty percent of substance abusers, ninety five percent of prostitutes and eighty five percent of our prison population were abused as children. We don’t need the failed war on drugs we need a campaign to end the abuse that drives people to rely on drugs.

Abuse happens on such a massive scale that society has come to accept it and has chosen to invest in controlling its symptoms.


President Hoover said,
"If the US could have
but one generation of
properly born, trained,
educated and healthy
children, 1000 problems
of government would
vanish overnight. It's not
the delinquent child that
is at the bar of judgment,
but society itself."
  The solution

Stopping abuse means breaking the cycle of violence that feeds it.

To break the cycle of violence and stop abuse society needs to:

Educate all adults on how to create safe environments for themselves and those that they love.

Provide easy access to enhanced mental health treatment to all survivors who need it.

Ensure all child abuse is reported into the system and effectively handled.

If we only do these three things we can substantially stop abuse but to do these three things we have to recruit America to the cause - and that’s up to each and every one of us. We can do that if we all work together to stop abuse.

Yes, we can stop abuse in America - if we want to.

We are the first generation with both the science and the technology to stop abuse.

So we have a choice, we can stop abuse or condemn our children to another generation of suffering. Each one of us has a role to play and it starts with becoming an AbuseStopper.

Our approach

Big problems need big solutions. We cannot stop abuse for America, America has to decide to stop abuse - and that will take a popular movement. We see our job as enabling the movement.

Our approach to building this movement mirrors that of a presidential campaign:

Invest minimally whilst testing support for our platform and building partnerships.

A primary phase where we coalesce the willing - building wider support and funding.

A general election phase where we convince the country to stop abuse and provide them with the tools to do it.

We have substantially completed the first phase and have formed a strategic partnership with NPEIV - the National Partnership to End Interpersonal Violence across the lifespan (http://www.uncg.edu/psy/npeiv/). NPEIV is an overarching network of state, regional, and national multidisciplinary, multicultural organisations, agencies, and coalitions. The Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma at Alliant International University acts as the fiscal agent for NPEIV. Alliant International University is a registered 501(c)3. NPEIV will be represented on the Stop Abuse Campaign board.

Victor Vieth of the National Child Protection Training Centre is also a member of the board. Victor published a paper outlining his approach to ending child abuse, an approach that takes 120 years, another 3 generations of suffering. By joining our board and working together Victor believes we can reduce the time to stop abuse to 1 generation.

The Stop Abuse Campaign is open and inclusive. We are a membership organisation and our members vote to ratify our board every year. Our board appoints our CEO who leads a small professional team of staff members who manage the campaign.

Our board, substantially recruited, will consist of leaders in marketing, communications, psychology, membership services, insurance, education, healthcare, industry, other abuse causes and survivors as well as leaders of different religious communities. After all it will take all of us working together to stop abuse.

Our board is responsible for the strategic direction and governance of the campaign. In a word our board are responsible for our success and a great part of that success will be the successful governance and investment of large sums of public money to stop abuse.

We have no give get targets, our board are recruited for their skills not their money (although we have yet to turn down a donation!).

The board is one of our two top priorities. It will provide both the strategic backbone and political clout to stop abuse.

Our other priority is the successful execution of our primary and general election phases.

Our primary phase has one objective; recruit more than 10,000 members to the Stop Abuse Campaign before March 21st, 2012 enabling the successful launch of our viral campaign, My Sunflower Promise. The more points a virus spreads from the quicker it goes viral, our 10,000 members will ensure our movement crosses that chasm quickly.

The revenue from $12 membership fees is also an important part of our initial funding.

Stop Abuse Campaign co-founder, board member and survivor, Ron Wicke will lead a member get member scheme to recruit our first 10,000 members by April 1st, 2012.


My
Sunflower
Promise
  My Sunflower Promise

My Sunflower Promise has three objectives (10-20-40):

1. Ensure America is aware of the problem
(10 million pledges)

2. Recruit America to take our education modules starting with ‘Safe Homes’
(1.5 million members) raising $20 million for the movement.

3. Coalesce the movement.
(Effective working partnerships with 40 NPEIV member organisations)

The Sunflower Promise is a pledge that “As an AbuseStopper I put stopping abuse first by working with others in my community to create safe environments free from violence and abuse.”

A secondary objective is build an infrastructure of AbuseStoppers throughout America committed to the eradication of abuse in America within the next generation. AbuseStoppers will receive their choice of daily or weekly education on how to create safe environments for themselves and those they trust. We’ll also call on our AbuseStoppers for their support of our public policy initiatives.

AbuseStoppers will be organised into state chapters as most public policy initiatives will happen at the state level.

501(c)3 organisations with supporting missions can benefit directly from participation in the Sunflower Campaign by registering as a Sunflower Organisation and promoting the campaign.

Ways to benefit:

$5 donation from every AbuseStopper’s annual membership of the Stop Abuse Campaign driven by their promotion.

Inclusion in ‘Monthly Giving’ plan from AbuseStoppers.

Registered to apply for grant funding from the Stop Abuse Campaign.

A supporting organisation with 5,000 supporters could earn up to $25,000 from registering as a Sunflower Organisation and promoting the campaign.
My Sunflower Promise was introduced at a press launch on December 8th, 2011 in Washington, DC.

Investing to stop abuse

$20 million dollars is a lot. Where does all that money go?
The Stop Abuse Campaign has three primary strategies to stop abuse:

Educate all adults on how to create safe environments for themselves and those that they love.

Provide easy access to enhanced mental health treatment to all survivors who need it.

Ensure all abuse is reported into the system and effectively handled.

Our investments will reflect these priorities.

The Campaign’s bylaws call for 50% of unallocated dollars to be invested in supporting causes. The Campaign will issue grants annually against the three priorities.

10% of grant funding will be invested overseas.

Our plan to eradicate abuse in America in 25 years will lay out how we will invest in stopping abuse and provide details of our grant program.

We have engaged external general counsel, The Dorf Law Firm, LLP, to ensure we have quality governance practices that are entirely open and exceed the standards required by law.

Our partner, NPEIV

We are working with NPEIV to produce the plan to stop abuse in America within 25 years. The plan will be available from Sunflower Day in October 2012.

NPEIV have 7 action teams developing the plan. They are:

1. Public Awareness Team - Developing Sunflower Day

2. Training and Mentoring - Addressing training needs across the professions

3. Practice - Increasing evidence based knowledge regarding best practices, for competent services at every level.

4. Research - Promoting research on connections across types of violence, integrating practice issues into research, supporting basic and applied research.

5. Public Policy - Co-ordinating education for policy impact, identifying needs, and developing research involved policy.

6. Dissemination/Translation: Developing strategies to translate research into practice and policy (and vice versa), developing a dissemination plan.

7. Networking/Community Capacity Building and Publicity/Public Relations

Details can be found at www.npeiv.org

To enable the teams to effectively develop a plan NPEIV and the Stop Abuse Campaign will jointly apply for grants to support three consultant facilitators to the seven action teams.

Action Teams will be enabled by public discussion boards where they can generate ideas and reach consensus.

The Stop Abuse Campaign board


Having completed work with consultants the Stop Abuse Campaign board is growing from a founder based board to an inclusive board representing the communities and skill areas we need to succeed.

Our current board members are:

Andrew Willis, Acting Chairman and Campaign CEO.
Ken Mason, Editor of the Stop Abuse Campaign website
Ron Wicke, National Director Development and Programs
Marek Lis, National Director Brand
Gennifer Sherman, Board Secretary
Tracey Lombardi, Social Programs
Victor Vieth, National Child Protection Training Centre

Several other board members are in the process of legal clearance and will be announced shortly. They include representation from NPEIV, a leader from the digital communications industry, a McKinsey Senior Consultant, and a retired US Navy Admiral who served as JAG judge.

We will make board positions available to other leaders within the movement.

We recognise that stopping abuse is a team sport.

Join the movement

1. Visit www.stopabusecampaign.com and take the pledge.

2. email info@stopabusecampaign.com to obtain the NPEIV membership application.

For further information please contact info@stopabusecampaign.com

  Andrew Willis
917 / 388-2529
andrew.willis@stopabusecampaign.com


Biography

Andrew was born in Hong Kong went to school in Great Britain and has not stopped travelling ever since. Following time in the British Army, where he reached the rank of Captain, he has spent his life practicing integrated marketing communications and marketing, mostly for global brands.

Andrew has worked in senior leadership positions for McCann Erickson, Ogilvy & Mather, IBM and Publicis and has been responsible for accounts that include IBM, American Express, HP, Citi and the Royal National Institute for the Blind.

He has been recognised with both creative and marketing effectiveness awards and has been a frequent speaker at conferences.

A survivor of both child sexual abuse and domestic violence, Andrew has dedicated the second half of his life to ending abuse and alleviating the suffering of those involved.

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148 West 127th Street, #2, New York, New York 10027. Tel: (917) 388-2529

www.stopabusecampaign.com
.
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